


Like Real People Do

by lesbiancharliekelly



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia AU, I'm sorry but it had to be done, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, Some Fluff, a bit of angst, and a happy ending!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-05-12 15:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiancharliekelly/pseuds/lesbiancharliekelly
Summary: In this universe, Crowley wasn't chosen to deliver the antichrist, so he's much more concerned about when he can next get lunch with Aziraphale than he is about the end of the world. That is until Heaven gets wind about Crowley and Aziraphale's little... arrangement. They aren't please, but Gabriel is feeling charitable, so instead of undoing Aziraphale completely, Gabriel merely wipes his memory and sends him off to small town America. When Crowley discovers Aziraphale gone and the bookshop under the care of one Anathema Divine, it's up to him to track Aziraphale down, restore his memory, and possibly declare his undying love along the way.





	1. All the Light of God's Creation

It’s about five years till the end of the world, but Crowley and Aziraphale don’t know that. When the antichrist needed to be delivered to the convent, Beelzebub had been having second thoughts about that Crowley character. She couldn’t be bothered to look into them—she’d been really leaning into the vice of sloth, recently—but still, she thought it best to give the task to someone else. And so it had been up to Hastor to deliver the child. Hastor had, in the end, managed to bungle the job just as much as Crowley might have, and so Adam Young had ended up with the wrong parents, and no one was the wiser.

Six years after Hastor bungled the job, Crowley is still blissfully unconcerned about the apocalypse. All he’s got on his mind this afternoon is that it’s been a minute since he’s seen Aziraphale. A few days, maybe? A week at least. Crowley decides it’s about time he pops down to the bookshop. He knows he can’t just _ask_ the angel to lunch. He’s got to have a _pretense_. It’s gotten a little tiresome—pretense—after these long six thousand years. But he’ll think of something on the way.

The drive over goes quicker than it should – it always does, for Crowley. If he’s being honest, he spends more of the drive bickering with his car than thinking about what to say to Aziraphale. It’s just that, for once, he wishes the Bentley would play something other than Queen. It’s not that he doesn’t _like_ Queen. But he just bought the new Lana Del Rey album, and he’d really love to play it if he could. Of course, that doesn’t happen.

So when Crowley goes swaggering up to the bookshop, it’s really without much of a plan for how the afternoon will go. He’s sure it will go somewhere, after all. The most Crowley has on his mind is which restaurant will best tempt Aziraphale, when he realizes that something might be wrong.

The bookshop is dark. He supposes that’s not completely unusual. Aziraphale does keep odd hours. Still, on a Friday at 2 pm you tend to find him in. But it’s more than that. Crowley can sense a sort of… emptiness to the place. He goes up and peers in the door. All the books are still in place. He spots an old copy of _Moby Dick_ on prominent display that he knows Aziraphale just got in last week. Why he put it on display like that Crowley doesn’t, for the life of him, know. He _does_ knows for a fact that Aziraphale doesn’t want to sell it, even more than Aziraphale doesn’t want to sell the rest of the books. Crowley has _tried_ to explain to Aziraphale a thousand times how businesses work. As a demon, Crowley himself is all too familiar with the finer points of _business_. Everyone down in Hell could really take a page or two out of some of the conferences Crowley attended in the ‘80s.

All that aside, though – the books may be all in place, but something about the place still feels _off_. As he’s lost in thought, still peering in the shop door trying to figure out what it could be, some young woman Crowley has never seen comes up beside him, holding what seems to be a heavy box.

“We’re not open right now,” she says, bracing the box between her hip and the door so she can fumble for some keys. “What with the change of ownership and all I’m taking a week to rearrange things a bit before reopening. I really should have put up a sign or something but it was all so sudden—”

At this point she stops talking and gives up trying to find the right key because Crowley is giving his best “I’m a demon and I want you to shut up now” glare. It’s pretty impressive, even with the sunglasses on. Crowley has lots of practice. At this point it’s usually just something he does when he feels like putting on airs, but today it is a very genuine rage that is seeping out of every one of his pores.

“I’m sorry,” he says, knowing that he doesn’t sound sorry at all. “Did you say ‘we’ are closed right now? Who exactly are you, again?”

She doesn’t cower as much as Crowley is used to when he really pulls out all the stops for a demonic glare. “I,” she says, standing up straighter, if anything, “am Anathema Device. The old owner – Aziraphale? – we’d been in touch. He was after a rare book – that I didn’t have, incidentally—“

Crowley can sense that she’s lying about that, about not having the book, but he doesn’t know why and doesn’t particularly care about this part of the story. “Yes?” he says impatiently. “And then?”

“Well, and then, out of nowhere, he sort of offered me the store. Didn’t even ask for any money for it. At first I thought he was joking, but the email was very sincere, and he wanted me to come right away, so I thought, well, it’s a few years early, but –”

“Wait, h-hold on a second,” Crowley sputter. “He _emailed_ you?”

“Yes, well that was odd, too, because we’d been sending letters back and forth till then, so I don’t even know how he got my email address but—”

This is all bad. This is _very_ bad. Aziraphale doesn’t send emails. Aziraphale doesn’t leave his _bookshop_ in the hands of some random _woman_. One thing is for sure: Crowley is not letting this _Athena_ person, or whatever her name is, take over Aziraphale’s store. In fact, he’s about to magic her out of existence right then and there when he realizes that he doesn’t know a _thing_ about books.

Sure, he keeps up with who the _it_ authors are, mostly so he can make a big show of it to Aziraphale when they inevitably end up as one of Hell’s own. But he doesn’t actually _read_ the things. It just didn’t seem like a… demon-y thing to do. And Crowley knows he’s not your typical demon, but there’s only so far he will go. Every time Aziraphale talked about cozying up with a book and a cup of tea by the fire, Crowley knows he’s made the right choice.

The reason he doesn’t read is definitely that, it’s definitely because it’s un-demonic. It’s _not_ because almost as soon as the written word was invented, Aziraphale fell in love with it, the beginning of an enduring love affair with language that has lasted to the present day. Of course it’s not that. Crowley isn’t… jealous of _the written word_.

It’s just… it’s just that he figured out pretty quickly that he loved Aziraphale. Or something to that effect. He’s not sure it’s “love” he feels because he doesn’t know if demons can feel that. But it’s certainly something. Anyway, the real problem is, he’s not quite sure how Aziraphale feels about him. Aziraphale loves everything, sure. That’s how it works with angels. Crowley is pretty sure demons don’t love anything, and angels love everything. Which means that Crowley can’t _really_ know how love works. So it’s not… unconceivable that Aziraphale loves books more than he loves Crowley. Or, maybe even worse, it’s not unconceivable that Aziraphale loves books and Crowley just the same.

Crowley realizes that he’s been staring at this Annabelle woman for quite a while now. She hasn’t said anything more, presumably because his “angry demon” energy is still in full swing. Crowley’s glad to see that even as brave as she seems it can still cow her a little. Still, perhaps it wouldn’t be prudent to just magic her away, seeing as he really doesn’t know how books work. Perhaps they need tending to, like his plants. Perhaps he should keep this woman around and just keep an eye on her.

“Alright,” he says, only putting a little magic into what he says next because she seems reasonable enough. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You _will_ be taking over the bookshop, but just for the time being. You will _not_ be expecting to stay long. You will _not_ change a thing about the place. You _will_ keep everything in order until Aziraphale gets back.”

She nods, looking only a little bit shaken. “Y-yes, that sounds good.” The magic sinks in, but she still looks a little doubtful. “Where is he?” she asks. “Aziraphale?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out,” he tells her, and then he storms off.

***

_Three days earlier_

Aziraphale is minding his own business, rifling through the _W’s_ section of fiction trying to figure out if he’s misplaced the copy of _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ that Tennessee Williams signed for him, when Gabriel appears in his shop. Aziraphale is never happy to see Gabriel – well, no, that’s not quite right, it’s just that Gabriel always interrupts at the _most_ inopportune times even if he _is_ the archangel. Something tells Aziraphale that this visit is going to be a particularly uncomfortable one.

Gabriel doesn’t even spend his usual amount of time fumbling through human pleasantries and trying to fool Aziraphale’s customers. Instead, he just grabs Aziraphale by the collar of his shirt and pulls him into a back room just long enough to shoot them both up to Heaven.

It’s been a – well, Aziraphale can’t even remember the last time he was in Heaven. It’s disorienting, and the fact that an angel shouldn’t find _Heaven_ disorienting makes it all the more so. But He doesn’t have time to collect himself before he finds himself accosted by Gabriel and Sandalphon’s accusations.

“So,” Gabriel says. “We found out about your little indiscretion. We have some intel that you may be… fraternizing with the other side.”

“F-fraternizing? Whatever could you mean?” Aziraphale stammers out, plastering what he hopes is a convincingly innocent smile on his face. He is, though he’s ashamed to admit it, not too bad of a liar, but the fact that Gabriel and Sandalphon know anything about him and Crowley has caught him off guard.

In response, Sandalphon merely holds up some photos: Aziraphale and Crowley meeting on their usual park bench, Aziraphale and Crowley standing outside Aziraphale’s bookshop, Aziraphale and Crowley getting lunch at Gunpowder next to Spitalfields. _Oh but that was an especially good lunch_ , Aziraphale thinks. _The food—to die for! _He can’t help smiling to himself at the memory of it, just a little.__

__That smile is immediately wiped off his face, though, when he looks back up to see the decidedly unsmiling faces of Gabriel and Sandalphon. _Crowley_ , he thinks immediately. He thinks, desperately, of that thermos of holy water. _If he’s found out too, he’s not going to use it, is he? Not how I fear he will? I shouldn’t have given that to him. I should have… I should have schemed and kept him from getting it from me or anyone else. I’ve hung around Crowley long enough now to know how to scheme, haven’t I?_ But it’s too late for that, in any case. Crowley is crafty. He’ll get himself out of this, if he is indeed in it as well._ _

__What Aziraphale doesn’t know is that Sandalphon and Gabriel discussed it, sure, but they’ve decided not to say anything to Beelzebub. Crowley and Aziraphale may have looked like they were sharing an intimate moment or two in the photos, but that was just the problem. How did they know Crowley wasn’t tempting the angel under direct orders from Beelzebub herself? It would be embarrassing, really, even if Crowley wasn’t under orders, to admit that they had a potential defector on their side. There were still five years to the end of the world. If they started showing weakness on their side now, where would it lead?_ _

__But they don’t share any of this with Aziraphale. Instead, Sandalphon says, “We cannot have this, as I’m sure you understand. However, since we are angels, and we are charitable, we aren’t having you done away with completely.”_ _

__“That’s right,” Gabriel picks up where Sandalphon left off. “We’ve got this new magic we’ve worked up, and I’m dying to know if it really works. We’ve been memory wiping humans since – well, since the beginning of time now. But we think we’ve worked out how to do it on angels now, too. Isn’t that marvelous? No sense wasting a perfectly good angel when we could just give you a fresh, clean start. We’re going to send you back down to earth, somewhere where you can’t make any trouble and will be out of our hair until—well, until some things get sorted out about five years from now. I’m sure you’ll agree that’s best for everyone.”_ _

__“Oh,” Aziraphale says. “Well.” His mind is racing, desperate. _I won’t remember Crowley. I won’t remember Crowley, and who knows where on earth they’ll send me. Probably not back to London. I’ve got to get a message to him somehow._ He knows he can’t contact him directly – there isn’t time. But he has one last hope._ _

__“Could I – well, it’s just that my bookshop down on earth will be left without an owner, and—”_ _

__Sandalphon cuts him off before he can finish the thought, “Why should we care about that? That’s a rather _mortal_ concern, isn’t it? We should have known the minute you got that shop that something was up.”_ _

__“Well, it’s not me I’m concerned for,” Aziraphale says. “It’s just that, on earth, to own a bookshop is a serious thing. It’s quite an honor. It’s an important inheritance, and when a shop changes hands it often makes all the papers. They’ll get suspicious if I just leave. A lot of humans will. It’ll cause an upset that’ll take days to clean up. And I already have someone in mind. I could _so_ easily pass it along. Just want to make things easier for all of you. It’s the least I can do after the harm I’ve caused.”_ _

__He tries to look contrite and hopes he wasn’t laying it on too thick at the end there. He sees Gabriel frown, and guesses that Gabriel is weighing taking the chance that Aziraphale is lying versus the effort it would take to actually investigate these claims. He can tell just how much Gabriel _doesn’t_ want to deal with the cleanup if Aziraphale really _is_ telling the truth. At least, that’s what Aziraphale is hoping he’s thinking. He’s counting on Gabriel’s distaste for all things earthly to make them buy this blatant lie._ _

__“Alright, yes,” Gabriel finally sighs. “Pass along this bookshop. I’ll nip us both back down to earth, but only for five minutes. Then we’re coming right back.”_ _

__Gabriel grabs him by the collar again, and Aziraphale closes his eyes, and when he opens them he’s back in his bookshop, maybe for the last time. Hopefully not for the last time. If this plan works, Crowley will come get him. Well – well maybe that’s a selfish thought. That’s not why he’s doing this. He doesn’t expect to be saved. Aziraphale just can’t bear to have Crowley wandering around thinking that Aziraphale just up and left him. Even if he never sees Crowley again, he wants Crowley to know that he didn’t leave of his own volition. That feels – that feels important, somehow. And there’s the other thing, too. Aziraphale had been getting some whiffs about the end of the world lately._ _

__It had all started like this. He’d run into another angel the other day while looking at the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. “Just miracle-ing it to last a little longer,” the other angel had told him, giving him one of those tight-lipped smiles shared exclusively between strangers or unfriendly coworkers._ _

__“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale had said, thinking it best not to mention that he was just there to take a bit of a look around. Wasn’t something angels needed to do, really, look around museums just for the fun of it. There were plenty of monuments to the splendor of God’s creation up in Heaven. Aziraphale couldn’t really explain the appeal of these human ones, except that he sometimes liked to see humans marvel at what the humans before them had done._ _

__He liked to linger next to the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal in particular. He could always barely restrain himself from leaning over and telling one of the tourists, “I was there for that, you know. The lion hunts.” He supposed it wasn’t very angelic to enjoy a lion hunt, but when the Christians came along later and started facing down lions left and right Aziraphale felt better about the whole thing. And Ashurbanipal’s palaces had been irresistible. What was he supposed to do, _not_ hang around and watch a lion hunt or two while he was at it? He’d been trying to work out a way to get the palace reliefs back to their region of origin. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why the higher-ups didn’t think it a worthy miracle._ _

__Anyway, he didn’t think it prudent to tell any of this to this other random angel. Instead, they’d made small talk, and the angel had made some joke about preparing for the end of the world. When Aziraphale had reacted with confusion, the angel had become extremely tight lipped. They looked like they regretted saying anything, like they were realizing they might have let something slip that they were supposed to be keeping under wraps. “Oh, sorry, just a bad joke on my part,” they’d said, but in such a way that led Aziraphale to think it wasn’t a joke at all._ _

__Of course he’d wanted to tell Crowley. But the end of the world, well… he was worried bringing it up would upset Crowley. It would put all sorts of ideas in his head. As much as Aziraphale didn’t want to deal with the end of the world on his own, he also didn’t want to deal with any solution from Crowley that might change the way things had been going. And he couldn’t be sure the end of the world really _was_ about to happen, anyway. Not based off just one angel’s stray comment._ _

__It’s just that Crowley had been coming around his store more than ever, recently. He’d even brought a gelato for Aziraphale along with him, once, which was touching, even if Aziraphale had had to take it outside and explain to Crowley that it was best not to have that sort of thing around books. Things had been so pleasant. The end of the world just _couldn’t_ be coming, could it? Not now. And so Aziraphale had thought it best not to bother Crowley about it until he was sure._ _

__Of course, there are few ways to be _sure_ about the end of the world, but Aziraphale had become certain that if he could just track down a certain book of prophecies, he _might_ find the answer. He’d tried before and had no luck, but then his whole world hadn’t been hanging in balance. A bit—well, a lot—of genealogy work was all it had taken. He’d eventually started corresponding with a very charming young lady named Anathema, who had insisted that really, no, she didn’t have the book he was talking about._ _

__Standing in his bookshop now, with Gabriel beside him, Aziraphale is banking on the fact that Anathema was lying about not having the book. He knows he can’t risk sending a message to Crowley, no matter how oblivious to earthly means of communication Gabriel might be. He needs something that’s sure to get through. And he needs something that will do it fast. He’s got an old computer sitting in his office, only because Crowley dropped it off one time when he was busy gloating about another big win for his side._ _

__“They even named it Apple!” Aziraphale can remember Crowley saying. Aziraphale doesn’t know how to work it, not really, but he’s got a good memory, and the snippets of what Crowley’s told him about computers, combined with a lot of magic—it should be just enough to – ah, there it goes. An electronic mail. Hopefully this will work. This has to work. Anathema will get the message, and she’ll come take the shop. Crowley’ll come by eventually, and he’ll know something’s not right, and hopefully he won’t just magic Anathema away. Hopefully this all will lead Crowley—if not back to Aziraphale (he daren’t hope, really)—then at least to the end of the world. It’s this hope that he carries with him into his final moments of remembering._ _

__***_ _

__Aziraphale wakes up in a stark, white room with a headache and a certainty that he’s lost something. He has a moment of panic and throws his hands blindly around beside him, searching for he knows not what. After a moment, his hands come into contact with hot metal._ _

__Ah, his flaming sword. That’s right, he had a sword. And here it is, not lost. That’s all right, then._ _

__“Aziraphale,” says a body-less voice. “Welcome to all the light of God’s creation. It’s been a bit more than seven days. Let’s catch you up.”_ _


	2. It's Not Like It's the End of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries to determine just where Aziraphale has gone and gets a pep talk from Aanthema. Aziraphale wakes up and gets a new assignment.

As soon as Crowley storms out of the shop, he realizes that he does, in fact, need to storm back. Normally he would put his pride first and spend the whole day wandering dejectedly around a park or something, rather than admit that he actually does need that Amadea woman’s help. Right now, though, Aziraphale is missing, and that angel is perhaps the one thing more important to Crowley than his pride. So Crowley turns on his heel and storms back in to the shop, doing his best to do so with dignity.

“Look, right,” Crowley tells Azreala, “I need to see your mobile.”

She looks up from the counter, where she’s just set down the box she was carrying. “And why’s that?”

“Need to see that email the an—Aziraphale sent you.”

“Look, who are you, exactly, if you don’t mind my asking? Are you his business partner or something?”

Crowley snorts. “Or something,” he says. Then, a little pleadingly, he adds, “Look, can you please just let me look at the email? What harm can that do? Just one little email.”

“Alright, fine,” she says, pulling it up on her phone and handing it over.

_Dear Anathema,_

_Urgent duty calls me away. I must unfortunately leave my bookshop and, I fear, England all together. I would so love to leave it in your capable hands. I know this is sudden, but please take me at my word. I’ve got the legality of it all worked out already, my own bit of magic, you could say. I’ve already put the papers in the mail for you to sign. I will, unfortunately, not be able to write, but I do hope you’ll accept the offer. And if someone should come into your shop inquiring about the book, perhaps you’d be so kind as to show it to him. Please do take care of everything, will you?_

_Yours fondly,_

_Aziraphale_

“Yours fondly?” Crowley says when he finishes reading it. “Yours _fondly_?”

“Yes,” she says. “What’s wrong with that? Aziraphale is a very nice man—”

“A very nice man,” Crowley scoffs, interrupting her.

“Yes, a very nice man. BUT I can assure you we were only every acquaintances. He really was just—well, after the book. He’s not leaving the shop to me because we were secret lovers, or anything. I mean, I was all the way in America, and now anyway he’s not in England anymore, and even if that were the case, and we were lovers, it’d still be legal anyway, I have the papers right here, I can show you—” she starts to reach into her bag, but Crowley just gives her a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Oh, don’t mind the bloody papers.” He wants to pout, but he also wants to get to the bottom of why Aziraphale is gone. Why Aziraphale sent a message to _this woman_ and not _him_. “What’s this book, then? The one you say you don’t have?” he asks, putting a bit of magic into the question.

“Oh, it’s really nothing. I wouldn’t worry about—”

Crowley is frustrated. How did she resist his magic? She’s giving him an odd look about it, in fact. Does she _know_ he just tried to use it? She’s not some sort of angel in disguise or something, is she? No, Crowley would know _that_. What he doesn’t know is what’s going on here.

“Oh, come off it and just tell me what it is,” Crowley says. “He even says in the email—here, look, he says, ‘maybe you will be so kind as to show him.’” The “him” Aziraphale is referring to has to be Crowley, right? This is some sort of secret message for Crowley. This “urgent business” isn’t something… Aziraphale didn’t _choose_ to leave England, surely. Aziraphale hasn’t even left London in decades! He wouldn’t bugger off to some other country without a word to Crowley!

Unless, of course, he would. Unless he’s decided he’s had enough of their arrangement. Maybe he’s going straight. Maybe he’s decided that the best thing to do is to cut all ties with Crowley and move countries without a word. A fresh start.

No, he wouldn’t. Unless he would. _I need a drink_ , Crowley thinks to himself, and then he says, aloud, “I need a drink.”

“Right, well, I’ll be seeing you around then?” Athalia says.

“No, no, you’re definitely coming with me,” Crowley says, grabbing her by the elbow. “I am _going_ to get you to tell me about that book.”

***

An hour later, and Crowley has had three whiskey sours, which is enough for him to finally order the fruity special they’d had on the board. “Well, we don’t usually start making the specials until at least 5 pm—” the bartender says.

“Right, but you can make an exception,” Crowley snaps, magic-ing things a bit.

“Of course, of course, we can make an exception.”

When the drink arrives, it’s a rather horrid looking thing, bright red with little bits of strawberries and mangos all around the rim, and two straws. Anathema—she’d insisted that Crowley learn her name is he was going to badger her about the book, and he’d had no choice but to comply—looks at the two straws, and at all the straws in his discarded whiskey sours. “That’s a lot of plastic,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

“I know,” he snaps. “It’s a deliberate choice.” He’s close to telling her he’s a demon, and that it’s the kind of choice a demon would make, using all these plastic straws, but he’s still suspicious about her resistance to his magic, so he keeps his mouth shut for now. Well, he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, really, he just doesn’t bring _that_ up. Instead, he says, into his drink. “I just don’t see why Aziraphale would send _you_ an email and not _me_! I didn’t even know he knew how to use email!” Crowley makes a face, then says in a sing-songy voice, “ _Fondly yours, Aziraphale_ ”

“You’re his boyfriend, right? Come on, just tell me. Had you gotten into some kind of fight? I just want to know what this mess is that I’ve gotten myself in the middle of,” Anathema says, sipping gingerly at her first and only cider of the day.

“Boyfriends,” Crowley scoffs. “Boyfriends. No, we’re not _boyfriends_. That’s reductive.” Why was everyone always _doing_ that? Asking Crowley and Aziraphale if they were boyfriends, as if they were two twenty-somethings that met at Heaven (the club, not the actual place, you know) six months ago and really hit it off. Or asking if they were husbands, as if they were two grumpy old men who got up every morning and made each other _tea_ and read the morning _paper_ together and were going to _die_ ten or twenty years from now and be _buried_ together.

Although Crowley has to admit, now that he’s thinking about it, the tea and paper part don’t sound so bad. Not that _he_ would be drinking any tea. But it makes Aziraphale so happy. And Aziraphale could have the crossword and Crowley could have the Style section, and—but no, what they had was _more_ than that, they were an _angel_ and a _demon_ who had found each other century after century, and that was _more_ than some stodgy morning with a newspaper and some earl grey tea.

“Lovers, then?” Anathema asks, interrupting Crowley’s thoughts.

“L—afjdk—lovers?” Crowley sputters.

Anathema frowns. “How did you just _do_ that with your mouth?” Crowley just gives her a petulant glare. She throws her hands up. “Alright then, not lovers. But anyway, why is it so important to you, where he’s gone?”

“He—well, he—” Crowley can’t think of a way to explain it to Anathema without bringing the whole “angel” and “demon” and “6,000 years” thing into it. But he’s drunk enough of the fruity drink, now, to feel like that’s a fine idea. He’s not going to do what Aziraphale would do, though, and start in the garden. He’s going to get her up to speed very quickly. She looks like she has the constitution for it.

“Right, well, I’m a demon, see? In charge of doing the dark lord’s work and all? And Aziraphale, he’s an angel. We met, oh, you know, in the garden of Eden, and we’ve been running into each other since then, and along the way we decided, why not call a sort of truce on trying to foil each other’s plans? Make the work easier for both of us. And he’s also my best friend. And I’m probably in love with him, if demons can feel love, only he loves me only just as much as he loves his books, a-and food and—and well anyway, now he’s gone off somewhere and made a mess of everything.”

Anathema looks only slightly surprised, which is not the reaction Crowley was expecting. He was expecting she’d probably laugh the whole thing off, tell him he was crazy and to go home and sleep it off. Or, if she believed him, he’d been expecting a bit more shock on her part.

“Your aura _is_ so strange, I was wondering why that was,” she tells him thoughtfully. “And it would make sense, too, why Aziraphale was so interested in the book, if knew that the end of the world was coming.”

“The what? Excuse me? The end of the world?” Crowley says, squinting at her from behind his glasses.

“You don’t know?” she says. “You’re a demon, and you don’t know that the antichrist is, right now, somewhere in England, and that in about five year’s time he’s going to bring about the end of the world unless I stop it? I didn’t want to tell you before, in case you were a regular person and thought I was crazy and tried to take away my ownership of the bookshop. But I’m surprised a _demon_ doesn’t know about all this.”

“Oh, well, I don’t really get along with everyone down in the head office. Try and avoid going down there as best I can, really. I supposed I must have just missed the chatter. And anyway, what’s this about unless _you_ stop it? Who put _you_ in charge of stopping the end of the world?”

She does that thing where she sits up straighter in her chair before proclaiming something proudly. Two hours of knowing her and Crowley can already see this is a habit for her, and an annoying one at that. “I,” she says, “am Anathema Divine, descendent of Agnes Nutter, who wrote _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch _. I, too, am a witch. All of her prophecies have come true, so far, for centuries, and her prophecies concerning the end of the world say that I am the one to stop it.”__

__“Right, well, that’s nice. Does it say anything about me, in there? Or Aziraphale?”_ _

__Anathema hesitates. “It says—well, yes, now, come to think of it, it says that you’ll be separated, but that you’ll be reunited and get some clarity on the nature of your relationship.”_ _

__“Does it say that?” Crowley is mildly interested but also disbelieving, which is, come to think of it, his usual state. “Does it really say that you? You didn’t even look in that book thingie of yours.”_ _

__“I have them all memorized,” she tells him, holding her chin up proudly. Anathema is a _very_ proud person. There’s a bit of hell in her for sure. _Another one for our team, angel_ , Crowley thinks to himself, but then that only makes him sad._ _

__“Well can I see it?” he says._ _

__“No,” she says._ _

__“I think I ought to be able to see a prophecy if it’s about me.”_ _

__“I—well, fine. I was making it up.”_ _

__“Ha! I knew it!” Crowley says, although part of him was actually quite hoping that there was prophecy saying he would find Aziraphale._ _

__“You just seem so sad. And I can’t believe you _won’t_ be reunited when you’ve been finding each other quite on accident for the past, what? Thousands of years?” _Well, it stopped being an accident after the first, oh, decade or so,_ Crowley thinks, but he doesn’t tell her that._ _

__“You think?” is all he says. He’ll take any reassurance he can get, prophecy or not._ _

__“I do. I mean, there has to be _some_ reason Aziraphale sent _me_ a message and not you. But I don’t think it’s because he didn’t want to see you anymore. Not based on what you’ve told me. And I mean, I think he did want me to show you the book. Maybe he knew you didn’t know about the end of the world? Maybe this all has to do with that? Maybe he’s gone off to stop it, and he wants you to help?”_ _

___Gone off to stop the end of the world,_ Crowley thinks. _But surely he’d have told me if he knew._ “Or—or maybe this is his way of saying goodbye. Heaven versus Hell and all that, maybe he’s realized we can’t be friends anymore. Maybe he’s gone off to prepare for the final fight.”_ _

__“But he seems so nice. I can’t believe he’d just leave earth like that. He left me his bookshop. Would he have taken the time to do that if he really didn’t care about earth? Come on, maybe he’s gone undercover or something.”_ _

__“Undercover?” Crowley says._ _

__Anathema shrugs. “I don’t know how angels and demons work.”_ _

__“That can’t…” _Think, Crowley, come on._ He likes the idea that Aziraphale didn’t just leave him without a word. He’ll take this bit of hope Anathema’s offering. But that still leaves the problem of where he _did_ go._ _

__If it really is the end of the world, well, maybe that means both their head offices really are gearing up. Maybe they forced Aziraphale back to Heaven for some combat training or something. Aziraphale, in combat training! Crowley can’t very well follow him into Heaven, though. Probably buckets of holy water just laying around absolutely everywhere, waiting to undo him for good. Still, if that’s really where Aziraphale went, and he really needs rescuing, maybe—_ _

__Or. Or, maybe the head offices just started checking in more on their servants down on earth. They probably need the intel on what’s going on down here now more than ever, he should guess. So—so maybe they found out about Aziraphale and Crowley’s… arrangement._ _

__They wouldn’t undo him for that, would they? No. They’re _Heaven_. They’ve got to keep up a good face. Aziraphale said he’d left England. Maybe they just re-stationed him. Maybe he can’t get word to Crowley because they’re keeping a closer eye on him. But if Crowley were to be re-stationed as well, and start actually causing demonic problems again, well, then, Aziraphale would have no choice but to try and stop that, right? Or maybe _Crowley_ can go undercover._ _

__He just has to find out where Aziraphale’s gone, that’s all. This isn’t the end of the world. Well, it is, maybe, is Anathema is right. But as long as Aziraphale’s still around earth somewhere, there’s still hope. That’s what he means. “Right, then,” he tells Anathema, not realizing she’s been staring at him expectantly, waiting for a reply this whole time. “Right, well, you take care of the end of the world and I’ll go off and find the angel.”_ _

__“Wait, that’s it? You’re just running off and leaving me here to deal with the end of the world on my own?”_ _

__“What, you just told me to have hope that I’d find him and now you want me to stay here and help you out with this whole end-of-the-world business? Do you really want a _demon’s_ help with that?” Crowley says, doing his best to look menacing._ _

__“You don’t seem like the bad kind of demon,” Anathema says._ _

__“You’ve just spent the last while telling me to have hope that I’ll be reunited with my—with the—with Aziraphale!”_ _

__“Well, yes, but I thought you might put in some effort toward stopping the end of the world first. He wanted you to know about the book, after all. Don’t you think he might have wanted you to help me?”_ _

__“Oh, no,” Crowley says. “You rather seem like you’ve got this under control. You can’t very well expect _me_ to do anything about the end of the world without _him_ anyway.” As he says this, he’s already gathering himself up out of his chair donning his coat, and making to leave._ _

__“Fine,” Anathema says, maybe sensing that she’d be pushing her luck if she tries to stop him from leaving. “Well, I do have this under control. Agnes always said _I_ would be the one to stop it anyway. Right. Fine. Well, good luck with your boyfriend!” Anathema yells the last bit as Crowley is almost out the door._ _

__“Not my boyfriend,” Crowley says, but by this point he is out on the street already and unsure who he’s even trying to convince._ _

__***_ _

__It was strange, at first, waking up a new angel only to find that 6,000 years had passed since God first created the earth. A lot of catching up to do. But Aziraphale is sure this is all part of God’s plan. And it was wondrous, to learn of all the things They’d done. Gabriel had been _so_ helpful, filling Aziraphale in on everything that had been going on. If he had also been rather annoying at times, too, well Aziraphale was sure that wasn’t Gabriel’s fault and anyway, even that must somehow be part of God’s plan too._ _

__A few weeks after he awakens, Gabriel tells Aziraphale, a big smile on his face, “It’s time. We’re sending you down to earth.”_ _

__“Down to earth?” Aziraphale says. “So soon? Are you sure I’m ready?” They just finished covering the industrial revolution last week, and Aziraphale wasn’t sure he fully grasped all the implications of it. And then once you brought Amazon into the picture, well. He’d just like a minute more or so to let it all sink in._ _

__But Gabriel seems unconcerned about the fact that his history lessons might have been a bit rushed. All he says to Aziraphale is, “Yes, of course you’re ready! I have the utmost faith in you. Haven’t I taught you all about fitting in with humans? And we’re sending you to one of my favorite spots – Nevada City. Quaint little Northern California town. Great Co-op there. But it’s also got it’s share of Hell’s inventions that need combating. The amount of white dreads are off the charts!”_ _

__Aziraphale has many more questions, but Gabriel is already pushing him toward the portal that will lead him down to earth. Before he goes, Aziraphale just manages to say, “But, well, what’s my mission, if you wouldn’t mind me asking?”_ _

__“Oh, just keep an eye on things,” Gabriel says. “Work some small miracles. You know, the like. Don’t forget, we’ll be checking in.” Aziraphale knows that last sentence is meant to sound reassuring, but he shivers a little despite himself. Then Gabriel gives Aziraphale one last push into the portal, and he’s earthbound._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Aziraphale and Crowley will actually interact in the next chapter, I swear...


	3. C'mon, Angel, Get in the Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley does some sleuthing. Aziraphale adjusts to life on earth, only to be interrupted when a certain demon finally tracks him down.

The first few months after Crowley leaves the bar determined to find Aziraphale, he goes underground—literally. Crowley knows he can’t very well go around asking various angels what’s going on up in Heaven, so he does the next best thing and asks demons. Demons _love_ to gossip, and down in the head office there are plenty of them coming from all corners of the mortal plane and beyond. It’s a bit tricky—can’t go asking the wrong ones, like Hastor, who might report to Beelzebub that he’s been making suspicious inquiries. Happily for Crowley, though, there are plenty of demons keen on gossip and too stupid to pay any mind to the potential significance of the questions he asks them. When Hastor is one of the smart ones, you know it’s bad.

A month or two in to his inquiries, he’s chatting up some low-level demon, just some juggler who only has any status as a demon at all because Cornelius Agrippa classified jugglers as such in 1509. Normally Crowley wouldn’t even deign to talk to this guy, but he heard the man had some reliable information about new plans in Heaven. It takes Crowley a minute to convince the guy to put down the lemons he’s so deftly tossing into the air, but he finally does.

“Memory loss,” the juggler tells him, looking him square in the eyes.

“Memory loss,” repeats Crowley blankly, not seeing where the guy’s going with the concept.

“Yeah. Heard they invented some sort of memory loss technology they’ve been testing on angels that stray too far from the divine plan.”

“The divine plan is ineffable,” Crowley spits out. “How do they know who’s straying from it?” But all the malice in his words is really just a front to cover up the fear that’s siezing him. Memory loss. It would make sense. A small part of him is overjoyed— _I was right. Aziraphale hasn’t just gotten fed up and left me_ —but the small comfort this thought brings is immediately overwhelmed by the enormity of what Aziraphale forgetting means.

6,000 years, gone. He knows they weren’t boyfriends, or lovers, or husbands. Nothing like that. But they had still shared something that Crowley has found with no other entity, in Heaven, Hell, or earth. The thought that those idiots up in Heaven would just wipe all that away, probably will a mere snap of their fingers, is infuriating. And all because, what? Because Aziraphale wasn’t manifesting God’s will on earth right, or something? Crowley’s not sure he believes that there’s truly anyone behind the curtain, so to speak, and even if there is, he doesn’t bloody like Them. But he does believe that Aziraphale does more for the earth every day, just by existing, than the rest of them have done in all of existence.

“What’re you on about?” the juggler asks, breaking Crowley out of his bitter thoughts. “Ineffable?”

“Oh, shut up,” Crowley says, and leaves Hell as he always does: in a terrible mood.

He decides to do what he often does in times of crisis and drink himself into a stupor. He goes to a bar and then he just kind of… doesn’t leave. Convenient when you’re a demon who tends to forgo the earthly pleasures of food and the like. A week or two into this, though, and Anathema somehow finds him wallowing at the pub. It’s a particularly dingy place where he once magic-ed all the pool tables to be just slightly tilted, something that he subsequently forgot about and has since led him to lose quite a bit of money on some pool-game wagers.

On this particular night, though, Crowley doesn’t have it in him to play pool. He doesn’t have it in him to do anything besides mope into a bottle of sherry, which is what he’s doing when Anathema finds him.

Staring down at him sternly, she says, “I came to terms with the fact that you aren’t going to help me stop the end of the world a while ago, but what I will not accept is you drinking yourself blind in bars instead of saving your friend.”

“I’m a demon. We’re s’pposed to drink,” Crowley slurs, emptying the rest of the bottle. After he does so, he can’t find it in himself to keep up his pithy comments and demonly demeanor. Instead he just says, rather quietly and without looking at Anathema, “What if I can’t save him? What if it’s all really gone wrong this time.”

The stern look fades from her face, and she sits down across from him. “Didn’t you tell me last time you first met him in the garden of Eden? If you’ve managed to find each other all these years after that, over and over again, don’t you think you can manage to do that just one more time?”

“That’s not the problem,” Crowley says. “The problem is, what if there’s no him to find? No, no, not that,” he adds quickly, seeing the look on her face. “He’s not dead. Not deceased. But I think they’ve magic-ed his brain kaplooey. Taken the memories straight on out of there and put them in—in the rubbish, or something. I don’t know. The point is, I don’t think he remembers me.”

Anathema looks very grave. If she came here to make Crowley feel better, she isn’t doing a very good job. “They can do that, then? Erase all his memories?”

“I don’t know. Some juggler told me it was true. New technology. New magic.”

Anathema gives him a questioning look but seems to decide the juggler portion of the story isn’t worth focusing on at the moment. “New magic,” she says and then is quiet a minute, seeming to mull the thought over. “Look, I may have been preparing to stop the antichrist almost all of my life, but when it comes to the daily magics of Haven, I have to admit I don’t know that much. Still, I know magic, and I know it doesn’t always work like you’d expect it to. There are other forces at work. Forces like—“

“Don’t say love,” Crowley says before she can finish.

“I wasn’t going to say love,” she says.

“Yes you were. You were going to say things like ‘love’ and ‘hope’ and then tell me that if my love for him is real, I can save him. But I’m a demon, and I’m not sure I _can_ love. It’s—“

This time it’s Anathema who cuts Crowley off. “Of course you can _love_ you idiot. No one drinks themself under the table for a week straight over a man they don’t love.”

“I’m not under the table,” Crowley pouts. He decides he is too drunk to even _try_ to address the first part of her statement, the part about how he’s in love. He’ll confront that some other time.

She waves her hand as if to say, “Let’s not bother with the semantic argument of it, shall we?” Then she tells him, “Seriously, though. You’re a demon. Isn’t your very _being_ created to thwart the machinations of Heaven at every turn? Especially if this is something they’ve just cooked up. How can they be sure it will hold? How can you?”

Crowley is finally perking up a bit. As much as it scares him, the thought of finally tracking down Aziraphale only to be met with a blank look – well, what’s the alternative? Never seeing him again? A life without Aziraphale isn’t worth living. Heaven and Hell and the end of the world be damned, or be saved, or whatever. He’ll take Aziraphale any way, in any state, just so long as he can have him in his life somehow. And maybe he can even find a way to set things right. When has he ever thought the archangels of Heaven were particularly competent at their jobs? “That’s true,” he finally says to Anathema. “I am good at thwarting mac—match—machinazzions.”

“Of course you are!” she tells him, generously not correcting his pronunciation and instead gently pulling the empty sherry bottle away from him. “There’s the spirit! Don’t give up.”

“Don’t give up,” he repeats. “I suppose I should sober up now,” he says, and does so. Anathema quickly pushes the now-refilled sherry bottle away from her and eyes it suspiciously.

“Well. Thanks for the bit of cheering up,” Crowley says, standing up to go. This woman only seems to see him at the _most_ embarrassing times.

“Oh, it was no problem,” she says, looking relieved as Crowley is that their little heart-to-heart is over. She truly has the air of a woman with things to do about her.

As they’re about to part ways on the street, he turns to her, unable to stop himself from asking, “How _did_ you know where to find me, anyway?”

“You’re not the only one with a bit of magic up your sleeve,” is all she says, wiggling her eyebrows at him. Though they are nothing alike, at that moment she reminds him so much of Aziraphale he has to turn away. Once she’s about halfway down the street, though, he has a thought that makes him run to catch up with her. “Actually,” he calls out, “I might need to come with you. To the bookshop. There’s a book or two I need to get.”

“You are _not_ getting my one and only copy of _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_ , not even to find your husband or whoever he is,” she tells him, walking determinedly forward.

“No, no, not that one,” Crowley says, still following. “There are other books in the world, you know.”

“I know,” she sniffs, but then she slows down just a bit so he can fall into step beside her.

***

Crowley’ spirit may be somewhat revived, but there’s still the matter of finding just where, exactly, Aziraphale’s been sent. It isn’t easy going, but it’s not as hard as one might expect either. Crowley merely keeps an ear out for rumors of angels displaying any _unusual_ behavior. Even with his memory wiped, Aziraphale isn’t just _any angel_ , of that Crowley is sure. He’s an angel that—well, an angel that loves the world. And that’s not something that’s all that common, as Crowley has come to learn during his time on earth.

He gets a few false leads, sure—a trip to Greenland here, one to Egypt there. But seven months after Aziraphale’s initial disappearance, Crowley is finally sure he’s got it right. He better have, because there are only so many flights by airplane that he can take. He had maybe too much of a hand in influencing the development of the air travel experience back in the day, and he’s paying for it now.

This time, he’s headed to California. Crowley has to laugh. It is _so_ like Heaven to think, “Well, we’ve got to send him somewhere far, far away from London. Its antithesis” and then just cart Aziraphale off to America. Still, he’s got a good feeling about this. Last he heard, there was an angel there who spent too much of his time hanging around in _bookshops._ He almost thinks it couldn’t be so easy, but then again, what other angel could it be?

He knows there will probably be other angels checking in on Aziraphale from time to time, but he’s trusting that Heaven’s general distaste for earth and preoccupation with the end of the world will mean they won’t be bothered to spend too much time focused on any one angel. God might be all-knowing, but Gabriel, for all his airs, is not. And besides, Crowley can literally transform himself into a snake. Compared to that, some small changes to his corporeal form won’t be too hard to maintain for a week or two while he figures out how to fix Aziraphale. Because he _will_ fix Aziraphale.

Crowley’s plane lands, and he magics himself quickly through customs and out into the night. Once he’s far enough away from the terminal, he stretches out his wings and takes off into the night. _Aziraphale is close_ , he thinks. _I can feel it._

***

Aziraphale’s adjustment to earthly living has gone surprisingly more smoothly than he’d expected it would. The first two weeks or so had been rough, sure. He _knows_ that Gabriel is an archangel and has been alive for 6,000 years and all that, but Aziraphale has to say, he doesn’t think Gabriel knows that much about earth. When he’d first arrived in town and booked himself into one of the lovely historical hotels, it had become almost immediately clear that Gabriel’s tips about blending in were not going to cut it. Luckily, people hadn’t seemed too bothered. He’d gotten a lot, “You high, man?” or, “Jeez, this guy must be fried out of his mind,” but that didn’t seem to be too unusual a state to the locals, and so they’d paid him no real mind.

Pretty quickly, he’d learned that it was best to ignore almost all of what Gabriel had told him and to just trust his gut. Aziraphale has, he’s found, an unusual instinct for earthly life. Everything feels _comfortable_ to him here; more comfortable, even, than Heaven. He tries not to worry too much about why that might be. It’s all part of the divine plan, after all. He supposes it’s just that God made the earth, and so the earth is good, and so it’s natural that he loves everything about it.

And love it he does. Having not been given much guidance on what miracles he was exactly supposed to work, he’d figured that the best path forward is to immerse himself in as human a life as he can, in order to get a sense of just what might be beneficial to all these humans. And the more fully he immerses himself in the world, the more it delights him.

He loves the old hotel with its historical wallpaper that’s peeling, just slightly, in the corners of his room. He loves the river that weaves itself through the canyon just outside town and its little silver fish that try to bite at your toes if you stay too long in one spot. He loves the food – he will grant Gabriel that the Co-op does indeed have good smoothies, although more often than not he sees no problem with magic-ing himself a bit of money to eat at New Moon, one of the only truly classy restaurants in town. He does find all the brew pubs odd, though. They all feel, somehow, too aesthetically sterile, the food too upscale, although he doesn’t have anything to compare them to and so isn’t sure quite where his discomfort is coming from.

It’s no matter, though, because there are plenty of other things about earth that he loves. Namely, bookstores. Upon arriving on earth, he’d figured that the best way to learn about humans, besides to talk to them, was to read. That way he didn’t have to ask any glaring obvious questions that would make them suspicious. He’d wandered into a few stores in town, but really fallen in love with Booktown. Booktown, too, is a Co-op (if there’s one thing that living in Northern California has taught Aziraphale, it’s that humans love co-ops.) Booktown is full of old books from all over the state and the country, stuff that dates back to the 1800s even. These older books fill Aziraphale with a strange emotion, longing and familiarity and something unnamable all at one. He started hanging around the store so much that they’d offered him a spot as one of the booksellers, although he has to admit he doesn’t think he’s really gotten the hang of it yet.

He’s working in the bookstore today when a woman comes up to ask him about the spiritual healing section. When he answers her, she giggles. “Ooh, I like your accent. Are you from England?”

His accent was something Gabriel had commented on, too, when’d first woken up. “Still the accent, huh?” Gabriel had said after the Metatron introduced them. “Oh well, it’s no matter.”

“Still?” Aziraphale had asked, but Gabriel had only waved his hand.

“Oh, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Seven months on earth have been enough time for Aziraphale to consume a number of British shows, including all of the BBC _Pride & Prejudice_ miniseries as well as few seasons of _Downton Abbey_. He realized pretty quickly that he has an English accent, though he can’t for the life of him figure out why. He’s used to questions about it by this point, though. “Yes,” he tells the woman, smiling politely. “I’m from England.”

“Oh, it’s such a wonderful accent. I’ve always _loved_ a good English accent,” she tells him, leaning in close and batting her eyelashes.

It makes Aziraphale incredibly uncomfortable. He may be a new angel, but he’s not dumb. He knows what she’s doing. This isn’t the first time that some woman has flirted with him. Every time it happens, something deep within him chafes at it. He supposes it’s just because he’s an angel, and angels aren’t really inclined toward such earthly pleasures. On the other hand, he supposes angels aren’t usually inclined towards Italian food, but there’s a lovely little deli just down the road that he’s always going to for lunch.

More than once, Aziraphale has thought, “Well, if I want to truly understand humans, I should commit to the full human experience.” He can never seem to follow through though. Something about the women that flirt with him just never feels right.

He is saved this time, though, by a man coming into the bookstore and straight toward Aziraphale. The man has a snake tattoo on his face and is wearing dark glasses, which he doesn’t take off even though he’s indoors. At the sight of him, something in Aziraphale sings. He can’t explain it. _I ought to love every human equally,_ he thinks to himself. _That’s what angels do. I don’t even know this man and already I overjoyed that he’s rescuing me from this woman when she doesn’t mean any harm anyway._ Still, he can’t help being glad when the woman takes a step back as the man approaches.

The man doesn’t stop until he’s nearly collided with Aziraphale. Come to think of it, those dark glasses, the funny walk… Aziraphale _does_ so hope this man isn’t another one of those “stoners.” A _lot_ of the miracles he’s been performing so far have had to do with freeing people from the clutches of a certain intoxicating herb.

“Angel!” the man says, looking almost as if he’s holding himself back from throwing his arms around Aziraphale. “I found you!”

With this proclamation, the woman makes her way out of the store, muttering something about, “I might have known” under her breath. Aziraphale, though, pays her no mind. He’s too consumed by the aching yet implacable familiarity he sudden feels. He almost can’t think straight to get out the words, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

At those words, the man’s face falls for just a second before he seems to compose himself. “Right, well, I was right. We need to have a bit of a chat.”

Aziraphale knows he should probably be a bit more suspicious of strangers with snake tattoos who go around calling him “angel” and demanding they have “a bit of a chat,” but he’s desperate to know why he feels the way he does about this man. So he agrees quite readily. “Alright then,” he says. Wasting no time, the man starts strutting toward the door. Aziraphale follows, realizing only when they have made it several hundred feet from the door that he forgot to put the “closed” sign up. _Ah, well, the books can look after themselves for a bit_ , he thinks.

“Get in,” the man says, gesturing to an old British car. Aziraphale hesitates. At the sight of the car, he’s suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding, which he supposes is probably fitting and even healthy given the circumstances. Perhaps it _isn’t_ such a good idea to just go off with this random man.

Said random man seems to sense Aziraphale’s hesitation, though, because he groans and says, “Come on, you don’t even understand the amount of magic I had to exert to get this thing shipped all the way over here in time for my arrival.”

“Magic?” Aziraphale says. He may have only been on earth for seven months, but he knows by now that most people on earth don’t believe in magic. Unless this man is the pagan type, but he really doesn’t seem it. He’s not wearing enough distressed brown leather. Aziraphale leans in close, “Are you another… angel?” he says. He’s not really sure how this thing works, angels revealing themselves to one another on earth. There don’t seem to be any around Nevada City, except for when Gabriel stops by for his monthly visits.

The question seems to have insulted the man in front of him, somehow. Or something. Aziraphale watches the man’s face turn all kind of colors. “A—hhh, wha—I’m not an, an, an angel!”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale says.

“Oh for Satan’s sake, Aziraphale, get in the car!”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrow. “For _Satan’s_ sake? You’re not… are you a _demon_?”

Aziraphale hasn’t met any demons yet. Gabriel told him all about them, sure. He also told Aziraphale if came into contact with any of them, he should get as far away from them as he could as quickly as possible. And also that he should let Gabriel know. A novice angel like Aziraphale isn’t ready to deal with a demon, apparently.

The man in front of him sighs, looking defeated. “Yes, yes, alright. If you want to put it like that, I am, in certain terms, one could say, a demon. But you’re not getting the whole picture when you put it like that. I’d prefer if you call me Crowley.”

Aziraphale supposes he should be making his leave now. It’s just that, well, this man doesn’t _seem_ dangerous. And Gabriel is so, well, tiresome. If Aziraphale has to chose between an afternoon with Gabriel and an afternoon with this man—with Crowley—he’s going to choose Crowley. Besides, this demon has a car. He wears sunglasses. He seems to know more about life on earth than Gabriel does. It might be interesting to talk to a supernatural being who’s adjusted to life on earth. Of course, Aziraphale will have to guard himself against some sort of temptation—unless this is it, this is the first step. What if getting in the car with this demon leads to his fall?

He’s been silent a moment, trying to weigh his options, when Crowley seems to lose all of his fighting spirit and says, softly, “C’mon, angel. Just get in the car.” The way the man says angel, it’s not just some word, it’s a name. It’s familiar. When he’d woken up, and the Metatron had told me him what he was, that he was an angel, it had felt like a pronouncement, a mere statement of fact. The way Crowley says it, now—he sort of bends it in his mouth, but it doesn’t snap. The way Crowley says it, it feels like an identity, like something he could make a home in.

Aziraphale gets in the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I'm hoping to have the next chapter out within the week, but I've also just moved to a new city & am probably starting a new job/traveling to see my brother's composition performed at a festival/resuming dm-ing a campaign next week so it maaay be a few days late. I really am going to endeavor to have it for you on time, though! Also, seeing as they juuust now talked to each other, this fic may end up being more like 8 chapters rather than 6, we'll just have to wait and see. Comments & kudos are always appreciated, I love hearing what y'all think <3


	4. Not Miracles or Temptation but Everything Inbetween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale have yet another conversation in a park because what else do they do. Crowley wades despondently in a creek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just kidding about this chapter being late, I love these two too much to not work on this fic, so here it is!

Aziraphale is in Crowley’s car, and Crowley can swear he feels a different emotion course through him every second, each one leaving him feeling as raw and exposed as the last. He hope it isn’t as painfully obvious to the angel as he fears it is. It’s times like these that he’s glad he has his sunglasses, at least. Crowley resolutely keeps his eyes on the road and away from the angel.

He needs to decide where he’s taking them. He knows they need to go somewhere private so they won’t be overheard, but now that he’s actually with Aziraphale the thought of popping off to one of their hotel rooms is more than he can bear. Crowley supposes he could take Aziraphale to one of the many coffee shops in town—there’s one literally named City Council, which _must_ be the work of some previous demon almost as with-it as Crowley himself.

But Crowley doesn’t want to risk be overheard by someone from either side, even if he did _try_ to do some light reconnaissance before actually going to fetch Aziraphale. He’s pretty sure no one is lurking, but better safe than sorry. They’ll just have to go to a park. A tried and true meeting spot. There’s a number of them in town – Crowley knows because of his aforementioned reconnaissance. He heads towards Pioneer Park, the one that he thinks might offer the most anonymity.

Aziraphale, for his part, is quiet beside Crowley as he drives. Crowley desperately wants to know what he’s thinking, but he’s afraid to ask. He’s afraid of this Aziraphale, this angel who doesn’t know him.

A combination of the small size of the town and Crowley’s driving means they’re at the park soon enough, though. Crowley gets out of the car, expecting Aziraphale to follow, but Aziraphale makes no move to open his door. So Crowley goes around and does it for him, then stands there leaning against the open door in what he hopes is the picture of nonchalance. “What’s wrong, angel?” he asks.

Aziraphale looks up at him almost reprovingly. It’s a look he’s missed. “Why do you do that?” Aziraphale says.

“Do what?”

“Call me angel.”

“Well, it’s what you are, isn’t it?” That truly seems like the only answer he can give, given the circumstances. The old Aziraphale never asked him that, in all their years together. Crowley is realizing just how much of their relationship went unspoken and just how much of a problem that presents to him now. He’s going to have to give the angel some explanation, soon, something to make him trust him. But how to put into words what they are—were—are?—to each other?

“I mean, yes, but it sounds… different, when you say it.”

Different? Who else is going around calling Aziraphale angel? Crowley thinks of the woman in the bookshop and decides it’s just another question he doesn’t really want to ask. “I can stop, if you like,” he says, though it pains him.

“No, don’t” Aziraphale says very quickly, then seems to remember himself. There’s a pause where neither of them says anything, and it stretches on for a very long time. Aziraphale still makes no move to leave the car.

Finally, he asks Crowley, “Well, what are we doing here anyway?”

“We just need somewhere where we can talk. Why, is this not classy enough for you? Would you prefer I take you somewhere like the Ritz?”

“The Ritz…” Aziraphale says. Crowley waits for him to finish the thought, hoping against hope there’s something behind his almost loving pronouncement of the words, some memory. But Aziraphale doesn’t say anything more.

“Look, angel, you’ve come with me this far. Why not at least hear me out?” That seems to finally convince Aziraphale, who gets out of the car and follows Crowley past the tennis courts where a man and his daughter are doing a bad job of rallying. They make their way across a field and into a wooded area just past some picnic tables. Alright, no putting it off any longer. Time to explain whatever this is as best he can.

***

Aziraphale has, against his better judgment, followed this demon into the woods. This demon who is now pacing around him nervously, bubbling with more energy than the small creek gurgling along beside them. Crowley’s pacing almost makes Aziraphale’s head swim. He has to admit though, as much as he’s full of trepidation about the whole situation, there’s a small part of him that delights in the fact that he—he of all people—can make a demon nervous

“Right,” Crowley says after a minute of pacing. “right. So you don’t remember any of it? Nothing? It’s all coming up blank?”

“Don’t remember what?” Aziraphale asks.

“Look, just what did they tell you up in Heaven?”

“Well, I’m not so sure I should be sharing that with a demon.”

“But I’m not just a demon. I’m—we know each other.”

“We _know_ each other?” Aziraphale says. He does his best to sound incredulous, but the rush of love he’s been feeling ever since he first laid eyes on this man tells him Crowley is telling the truth, even if it doesn’t make any sense. That’s something that Aziraphale has already learned on his short time on earth, something that Gabriel never taught him—that truth often doesn’t make sense.

“Yes. We—well, you always started the story at the very beginning, so I guess I will too. We met back in Eden.”

Aziraphale interrupts Crowley before he can continue. “In _Eden_?” That’s impossible. That he was there for—for creation itself, that’s— “Don’t lie to me,” he says softly, hoarsely. That he was there for creation itself but can’t, for some reason, recall it, that’s—

“I’m not lying, angel. Look, just—I suspect quite a lot of this will come as a shock to you, so maybe just let me get through it all of it before you start asking question. Or, maybe—I don’t know, maybe I’m doing this all wrong, but I don’t know how else to—you’re the person I would ask about how to do this, only you’re not _you_ , or you don’t remember, is all—“

Aziraphale feels a catch in his throat as Crowley says all this seemingly half to Aziraphale and half to himself. Crowley hasn’t stopped pacing; in fact, he’s moving erratic movement. _You’re the person I would ask about this_. They’ve known each other since Eden. Just what are they to each other? He wants to reach out and take a hold of Crowley, place a hand on his arm, just to help calm him, to let him know it’s okay. But something about Crowley’s body language, and the uncertainty of just what their relationship is, makes him afraid that a touch would set him off more than calm him down.

What he does do, instead, is say, “I am here, though, Crowley. I might not remember you, but I want to hear what you have to say. I think you’re doing fine.”

That seems to calm Crowley down for a second. He doesn’t stop pacing but he does it in a less frantic way. “Good. Well. We met back in Eden. I… well, remember the part about letting me get to the end of the story? Well, I kind of told Eve to eat the apple, but then you—well, I wasn’t the only one who—well, anyway, you had a flaming sword, and you lost it, or gave it away, rather—you gave it to Eve, against orders from Heaven, mind you! And then we ended up meeting again – before the flood that killed Noah, in Rome, during King Arthur’s reign. We had some really good crepes in France during the revolution. You got yourself into a real pinch there.”

Crowley smiles in a way that pains Aziraphale. It’s the kind of smile that’s meant to be shared, but Aziraphale doesn’t know just what it is that Crowley’s smiling at. Crowley seems to notice, and stops smiling almost as soon as he’s started, although regretting the instinct, which makes Aziraphale feel worse.

Crowley continues, “Well, anyway. We kept meeting up. You were working your miracles, and me my, my dastardly deeds, or whatever you want to call them. But anyway. We sort of realized, somewhere along the line, that we were just cancelling each other out, so we came to sort of… an arrangement. Sometimes one of us would do the work for both of us, or we’d both just take a day or two off.”

Crowley pauses, takes a breath, then continues, “And we just sort of kept doing that, up until about seven months ago, when I suspect your head office got wind of what it was we were doing, and decided to do something about it. Erase your memory, that is.” Crowley stops talking. He looks like there’s more he wants to say, and Aziraphale waits, expectant for a minute, before it becomes clear that that’s all Crowley is going to say.

There’s about a million things he wants to ask, but what he ends up saying is, “How do I know you’re telling the truth? That this isn’t some sort of demonic trickery?” It’s not what he means, at all. It’s just, all the things he wants to say are too fragile to be let out into the air. Crowley has told him everything and nothing at once. And Aziraphale’s not sure he’s ready to face the implications of the fact that the archangel erased his memories and a demon tracked him down to tell him the truth.

Even as he asks how he knows he can trust Crowley, though, the demon’s face falls a bit, and Aziraphale regrets the question. “Well, I thought you might ask that,” Crowley says, reaching down into a black leather purse he’s brought along with him and pulling out a few books. “Here,” he says, handing them over. “These are just a few,” he says, sounding apologetic, “but I couldn’t very well bring all of them with me.” He then manages to stop pacing for a minute and stand next to Aziraphale looking over his shoulder expectantly as Aziraphale surveys the books.

Aziraphale takes a look at the spines. _Swann’s Way_ by Proust in the original French, _The Trial_ by Kafka in its original German, _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ by Tennessee Williams, and a collection of poems by Rumi in the original Persian. _I know Persian and French and German_? Aziraphale thinks to himself, realizing with a start that he can easily read their titles. “These look very nice, but I don’t quite…”

Crowley reaches over to open the book, his hand brushing Aziraphale’s as he does so. They both give a sort of start, and Crowley almost leaps backwards from Aziraphale. It only confirms what Aziraphale was thinking earlier when he decided not to reach out and comfort Crowley. But it also adds to his confusion about what, exactly, the nature of their relationship is. _And we just sort of kept doing that,_ Crowley had said. They’ve known each other since Eden but merely touching hands is enough to startle them both?

After a second of musing on this, though, Crowley comes almost sheepishly back and peers over Aziraphale’s shoulder expectantly. Oh, right, he’s waiting for Aziraphale to look at this book. He does so, and finds an inscription on the first page. It’s the copy of _The Trial_ , seemingly not even an official printed book but rather a bound manuscript. From the looks of it, it’s possibly not even a completed one at that.

On the title page there is an inscription in German: _Aziraphale, Engel – Du hast mir ein neuen Hunger beigebracht Wir haben mit ähnlichen Frangen gerungen; ich hoffe, dass in deinem langen Leben du einige der Antworten finden wirst. Alles Liebe, Franz_. Or, _Aziraphale, angel. You have taught me a new hunger. We’ve wrestled with similar questions; I hope that in your long life, you will find some of the answers. All my love, Franz._ Aziraphale feels his face color upon reading the inscription. _You have taught me a new hunger?_ It can’t possibly be implying what he thinks it’s implying. He can’t help but look at Crowley, to see if he’s read it too. Crowley gives him an unreadable looks, then coughs a little.

“I didn’t actually read the inscriptions when I grabbed the books. I was in a bit of a rush. I just knew they were ones that were particularly, uh, had particular sentimental value for you,” Crowley tells him. Aziraphale opens up the other books. Sure enough, on their title pages he finds his name in each author’s handwriting along with loving inscriptions similar to the one in _The Trial_.

Feeling sort of faint, Aziraphale looks around and, seeing no better option available, regretfully sits down on a nearby log, hoping it won’t dirty his white suit that much. “6,000 years,” he says faintly, mostly to himself. He hasn’t read any of these four books, not in this go-around, but even in his seven months on earth he’s heard of all of them. To think that before, before his memory loss, he not only had read all these books but met their authors—forged relationships with intellectuals and artists and poets across centuries—that he was there, in the garden, before the Fall—to have all of that ripped away from—he doesn’t know what to think or feel, let alone what to say.

Crowley, too, seems at a loss, but after a minute he says hesitantly, “Angel, I know—“

But Aziraphale cuts him off before he can finish speaking. His heart is hammering in his chest. Here is this demon, standing in front of him, who knows more than Aziraphale can even begin to imagine about the world, who knows Aziraphale maybe even just as well, knows more about him than Aziraphale knows about himself. A demon who he talked to, who he forged some kind of relationship with, over centuries and centuries. Had he known what he was getting himself into? He must have known the risks.

_Did I not believe it could happen, that they’d wipe my memory?_ Aziraphale asks himself. _Or did I just think the risk was worth it?_ But he has no idea. Whatever kind of angel he was, one who talked to demons and disobeyed Heaven—that’s all locked away from him, an old life, inaccessible. All he has to go on are some inscriptions in old books and the word of this one demon. He is terrified of the implications of the choices he made, and can’t even think of how to begin to untangle what they might mean.

So what he’s thinking is, _I’m scared_ , but what he says is, “No, you don’t know. You have no _idea_. You’ve been around for millennia, and seen the earth change, and here I’ve been—been reading about it in books, no idea I lived it too, and now that I do know, I’ve no idea how to get it back, and I gave that all up for what? Some conversations with you? I hope whatever passed between us was worth it.”

“Angel, I can fix—“ Crowley starts to speak, again, but Aziraphale is up and walking away before he can finish. He’s too mad to even miracle himself away; he wants the demon to watch his back as he leaves.

***

Crowley stands in the forest and watches Aziraphale go without trying to stop him. He’d known it would be hard, talking with an Aziraphale that didn’t know him. He’d imagined all sorts of terrible scenarios, including ones where the angel didn’t want anything to do with him or where Crowley found himself unable to recover the angel’s memory. But he’d always held out some hope, told himself that he could win the angel over with time, that even if Aziraphale didn’t remember he was still Aziraphale, still—still the most important person in Crowley’s life.

What he hadn’t let himself imagine was that Aziraphale would blame _him_ , blame Crowley for everything that was done to him. What hurts the most is, now that it’s been said, Crowley’s not even sure Aziraphale is wrong. He didn’t even get to try to recover Aziraphale’s memory, but he can’t go after him now.

_What if I am to blame?_ he thinks. _Am I really so full of myself that I can claim knowing me was worth Aziraphale losing everything, all his memories, all his knowledge of the world? He loves the world, and I’m just one small part of it. If he’d known this is what he’d get, this memory wipe, would he have talked to me at all?_

_I’m a demon,_ he thinks. _It’s not in my nature to love. It’s in my nature to tempt people. Isn’t that what I’ve been doing, all along, really? Tempting Aziraphale? Whether I meant to or not. And now he’s—well, he’s not fallen, but maybe almost worse._

Crowley stands alone in the woods for a long time, looking dismally at the small creek rushing past, just a few feet from where their conversation took place. After a long time, maybe an hour or more, Crowley methodically takes off his shoes, then his socks, then rolls up his pant legs and wades in. It’s the end of May, still too early in the year for swimming, really, not that this creek is near big enough for swimming. Crowley stands in the creek unmoving, feels his feet growing numb.

In all of 6,000 years he’s not done this, not really. He’s gone swimming, sure, in the Nile and the English Channel and the pond at Hampstead Heath. He’s spent more than enough time in various hot tubs. But he’s never done this, waded into a creek not big enough to swim in, just to stand with the water running over his toes. Because it’s something that children do. Even in just the few days he’s been in town doing reconnaissance, he’s seen them: toddlers in little rubber boots splashing around while their parents hold their hands, eleven year olds with paper boats standing in the water as they watch how far theirs will get.

Even the teenagers who sneak back into the woods to smoke will, more often than not, make their way into the creek. Their need to posture for their friends, to be careful not to cough when they take a drag, to say that they like all the right bands and none of the wrong ones—all that melts away and they will revert to their younger selves, picking up rocks to skip or sticks to fight with.

But Crowley was never a child, not really. He does has not have a lost boyhood to reclaim, no memories of when he was younger and there was someone watching over him, someone who’d fixed him supper and told him to change out of his dirty pants. He supposes that’s how it should have been in the garden, maybe, before the fall. But it wasn’t.

He knows he was with God before even that—before the fall, before even the garden, before creation itself. He was with God as was everything else, but that was a sort of wholeness so complete it wasn’t recognizable until it was gone. And then once it was gone, so was God. Crowley’s never seen God. Never been spoken to by Them. And everyone that claims to speak on Their behalf has never treated Crowley with any sort of kindness at all.

So he doesn’t know what it’s like to be young in this way. In the human sort of way where you wade into creeks that are too cold just to get at that really cool rock you saw from the banks. Young in a way where you can mess up but it doesn’t doom you, don’t turn your wings black and your friends against you. Crowley had to grow up fast. He grew up and got stuck that way for 6,000 years. The only person who ever made him feel young was—well, Aziraphale. Aziraphale let him make mistakes without consequences. Together they fumbled through and learned about a world that was richer and more vast than any other angel or demon would have them believe.

He wishes Aziraphale were here, now. He wishes he had the Aziraphale who remembers—or even the one who doesn’t—beside him so Crowley could ask him if he’s ever waded into a creek before, and how it made him feel, and if he ever wishes he were not an angel or a demon but just a boy, someone capable not of miracles or temptations but only everything in between. But Aziraphale’s not here, so Crowley merely stands in the creek a little longer and lets himself pretend, just for a moment, that he’s nothing more than human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the German was bad, I'm not a native speaker I just took it in high school & college and gotta use it somehow. Next chapter is practically done so should be up in a few days. As always, thanks for reading & comments and kudos are appreciated <3 Very excited about where this fic is going & so happy to get to share it with y'all.


	5. Love of the Specifics in Search of the Whole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale reads Kafka and Rumi and realizes that he might be in love with Crowley.

Aziraphale does what he has learned, during his short seven months on earth (and, he suspects, for centuries before that), to do in times of crisis: he reads. He wishes he had a diary to read through. Did he really not keep a record of any of his 3,000 years on earth? Or did Crowley just not know that he did, not know to bring it to him? Aziraphale suspects that perhaps journaling was too human a habit, even for him. The act of journaling is rife with a want to self-reflect or an insecurity about the future. Neither of these motivations are very angelic.

Angels are merely vessels of God’s word and light; vessels don’t need to self-reflect. Vessels don’t need to preserve the specifics of their experience out of worry that they will forget or be forgotten. Theirs is not to be remembered. Theirs is simply to convey the messages that will be. Or that’s what they used to do, anyway. Angels are like the middlemen of drug deals, Aziraphale thinks: they are expected neither to produce nor to consume but merely to convey. But what Aziraphale wouldn’t give to see God’s grow or at least be stoned in a basement right now. Then he mentally kicks himself for indulging in such blasphemous metaphorical thinking.

Aziraphale almost wants to Reveal himself to a human, you know, like they did in the old days, where they would go full “fire-y wheel of eyes” and tell people they were about to have a baby at age 100 or whatever. He wants to do that just so that he can be written about, interpreted. He wants to be able to read about himself through a human lens. But it’s been quite a while since angels have been in the business of dispensing the word of God.

In fact, ever since waking up, Aziraphale has yet to hear anything from God Themself. He wonders if he is alone in this, a new angel deemed unworthy of hearing Their voice, or if it’s been a while since _any_ angel has heard from God. Miracles without accompanying revelation are, in Aziraphale’s secretly held opinion, often a cold and lonely thing. He knows he can’t ask Gabriel about it. It would sound impertinent, irreverent. He wants to ask Crowley about it, but you can’t just ask a demon if he’s heard from God lately. Aziraphale can’t decide if it would be more disturbing if Crowley said yes or no.

Besides, he’s not ready to confront the reality of what Crowley means to him, this demon who knows him, who he doesn’t remember. And so, instead, he reads. He reads the books written by humans he knew, even if he can’t remember them.

He reads, for one thing, _The Trial_. He goes to Booktown and gets a real copy, as the one inscribed to him was indeed an incomplete draft. He reads in _The Trial_ about Joseph K’s conviction of a crime that he not only didn’t commit but one that goes completely unnamed and unexplained. He reads how Joseph K. is forced to endure a seemingly endless trial at the hands of an oblique organization which will not explain itself or its process, an organization which sends Joseph down various wormholes, seeking desperately from everybody a help which no one seems able to provide. Uncle, artist, lawyer, priest: all offer not only no reprieve from but also no real explanation of the trial. The book comes to an abrupt end with Joseph K. finally killed in a ditch, perhaps as a finally judgment in his trial but perhaps for no real reason at all.

Look the book up online, and you’ll find a myriad of explanations of it. _The Trial_ is an analogy for the senseless violence of World War I that Kafka lived through. _The Trial_ can be understood through a Freudian analysis of Joseph K.’s interactions with women and the sexual undercurrents of not only these exchanges but his dealings with the male painter as well. _The Trial_ is a comment on religion, on bureaucracy, on the legal system: they are wanting. Aziraphale actually seeks out an employee at Booktown to ask them how to use the internet, just so he can look up interpretations of _The Trial_. But when he does so, he finds that none of them satisfy him.

Aziraphale knows that he knew Kafka, in his previous life that now feels as foreign to him as a stranger’s. He wonders if _The Trial_ made any more sense to him then than it does now. But he suspects that the answer is no. _The Trial_ seems to him to be, frustratingly enough—and as the inscription to Aziraphale from Kafka suggests—more about questions than it is about answers.

If the trial really could be boiled down to just one explanation—if it were mere allegory for the law, or religion, or the violence of World War I—then why write it at all? That is, if Kafka’s entire goal in writing it was to convey one message—that the law has failed us, that religion has failed us, or that World War I was violence unexplainable—why not then make that point in a non-fiction essay with his points clearly laid out? The point of the novel seems to be, Aziraphale realizes upon further reflection, its messiness, its inability to make one point and stick to it. It defies explanation and instead demands that its readers give themselves over to its world, its logic, its experience. And that world, that experience, is not easily filtered through just one metric of understanding.

The novel frustrates and comforts Aziraphale all at once. It is, above all things, human. It feels like a concentrated dose of the reality he has been playing with and becoming a part of during his time on earth; the events that unfold within the novel fail to cohere to an intellectually summarize-able point but the emotions of it carried him through to the end and left him feeling satisfied. Not that Aziraphale is anywhere near the end of his human-like experience, or at least, he hopes not. But in his seven months here almost all that he had learned can not be summarized in any report to Gabriel but merely felt deep in his chest, like a tight pain and a deep breath all at once.

Running throughout the book, too, is a questioning of any system, be it legal, religious, artistic, or otherwise. This questioning leaves Aziraphale feeling seen and deeply nervous all at once. Kafka had said, in his inscription, that he and Aziraphale had asked similar questions, and Aziraphale suspects that whatever else it was he had lost after the memory wipe, he has been left with these same questions.

The part of the book he keeps returning to the most is a parable called “Before the Law.” A priest tells this parable to Joseph K. in an attempt to explain how the trial works. The priest tells Joseph K. about a man seeks the law only to find a gatekeeper guarding over it. The gatekeeper tells the man that he cannot enter. He tells the man that beyond this gate lie many more, all of which are guarded by gatekeepers even more powerful than the one the man is currently talking to, some of which could destroy even this gatekeeper with a single glance. Despite this warning, the man tries his whole life to gain entry to the gate with no avail. The story goes that at the very end of his life, the man says to the gatekeeper:

_“Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going to close it now.”_

In the book, the priest tells Joseph K. that there are many explanations for the parable, and that the lawmen involved in the Process have all found different interpretations in their time. To Aziraphale the only explanation of this parable seems to be that there is none. The man, like all other men—like all other people—seeks answers which he is unable to receive. But he cannot cease, his whole life through, to seek them. He is told, right at the end of his life, that the answers he sought had lain just out of reach—that he answers he sought could, in fact, be found by no one aside from him.

That’s what it feels like to Aziraphale to be an angel in the time of miracles without revelation. He has, he is embarrassed to admit, tried to pray many times since that day in the park with Crowley. Before Crowley showed up, he felt confused, but was content to assign that confusion to the mystery of God’s plan. After Crowley’s appearance, the acceptance of an ineffable plan somehow fails to be enough. It’s greedy, he knows. But he can’t help it. He can’t help but hunger after everything—earth food, the feeling of sunshine on his borrowed skin, river water between his corporeal toes, and answers to his questions. He doesn’t know if he’ll get them, but he can’t help but ask.

The thing about it is, thought, that angels aren’t supposed to pray. Angels aren’t supposed to feel doubt. Angels are, above all, not meant to search for meaning. They _are_ meaning, in that they deliver it to humans. Humans are the ones confused and afraid, the shepherds assured that the son of God is to be born. Angels are the ones who do the assuring. If Aziraphale can’t remain a steady presence conveying God’s message, what is he on earth to do?

It’s just that somewhere along the way, Aziraphale has found himself uncertain as to what God’s message actually is. He supposes it’d be one thing if he were just one angel among the horde, a newborn not in the know. If humans had been getting their answers from other sources, despite Aziraphale feeling unable to give them, that would be one thing. But if Kafka’s book is any indication, humans have been without certainty for longer than Aziraphale.

Or maybe not longer. Aziraphale wonders if there’s at least one answer he’s been searching for—if his uncertainty might point to why he knows Crowley, why he feels this strong and undeniable _love_ for a demon that goes above and beyond anything he feels for the rest of God’s creation. Crowley seems, beneath the swagger and the sunglasses, just as uncertain an Aziraphale. Aziraphale wonders if he’s found the only other one of God’s creatures able to live in more than three dimensions and have doubts about it all at once. He’s wondering if that isn’t the divine plan all along.

Kafka isn’t the only thing Aziraphale’s been reading. He’s been reading Rumi too, and among his other poems Aziraphale has made his way through most of the _Masnavi_ , which begins:

_Now listen to this reed-flute’s deep lament_  
_About the heartache being apart has meant:_  
_‘Since from the reed-bed they uprooted me_  
_My song’s expressed each human’s agony,_  
_A breast which separation’s split in two_  
_Is what I seek, to share this pain with you:_  
_When kept from their true origin, all yearn_  
_For union on the day they can return._  
_/…/_  
_It’s fire not just hot air the reed-flute’s cry,_  
_If you don’t have this fire then you should die!_  
_Love’s fire is what makes every reed-flute pine,_  
_Love’s fervour thus lends potency to wine_

Aziraphale knows it’s about God. It’s about God and humans: how humans, like reeds, were pulled from the source of their creation—away from the river bed, away from God—and now sing out in pain, wanting to return to him. There’s no angels in the poem. Rumi seems to scarcely have room for angels in his poems. Having researched Rumi as well as Kafka, Aziraphale knows that what sets Rumi apart from Sufi poets that came before him is, in part, that Rumi begins this poem not with an address to God Themself but to a Reed, a lowly plant in the dirt.

Rumi’s poems, like Kafka’s writings, purposely eschew relegating themselves to the category of pure allegory. Sufi poetry before Rumi was often much more cut and dry: whatever else it was about on the surface level, it was always, on a deeper level, about God. When previous poems were writing about reeds in a reed bed, they were always actually writing about God. But when Rumi writes about a reed in a reed bed, as much as he’s writing about God, he’s also actually really writing about that reed. Rumi’s poems situate themselves firmly in the human experience and refuse to every fully leave.

Knowing this makes Aziraphale feel just a bit better about what he feels when he reads Rumi’s poems. When he reads this poem, there is a part of him that of course thinks longingly of God, about the eternity before the garden, before creation itself, when everything was with God, before God broke themselves into pieces. Aziraphale must have experienced that, as everything did, although he’s unsure if something like that can be remembered even by angels that didn’t have their memories wiped.

But as much as Aziraphale thinks of and longs to recall that pre-eternity—if it indeed can be recalled—when he reads this poem, he thinks more immediately and urgently of Crowley. Aziraphale knows that some Sufis posit that God split himself into pieces in order to feel love—that love needs separation in order for recognition, that God while whole lacked an other in which They might kindle that spark of recognition—but he finds it hard to love a God so absent as his.

Who he does love is Crowley. He doesn’t know why, he can’t explain it—and there’s the crux of the issue. He knows this is blasphemous to say, but his memory loss makes him feel almost like God, in that he feels it has separated him from Crowley, but also that it is only this separation that has allowed him to understand what it is he feels.

Aziraphale can sense in the way Crowley refuses to touch him, the way Crowley refuses to say what it they were to each other and instead only lists the places they met over and over throughout time—Aziraphale can guess that there is something beyond mere friendship between them. And he can guess, too, that it’s only because he has lost all intellectual understanding of what it was that has passed between them but maintains somehow this record of their love etched into his very being—it is only because of this that he can acknowledge that, this more-than-friendship love.

Aziraphale suspects it goes like this: angels are beings of love. If God broke Themself into pieces in order that love might pass between God and humans, then angels are the beings meant to translate, to make the love of God and the love of human understandable to one another. It’s no small task. But with God gone—out to lunch, not taking calls, whatever it is you might say—the love that Aziraphale finds himself left to translate is his own.

It’s perhaps a more delicate task than before. God is love universal and humans are love specific, which leads Aziraphale to be something else entirely—a being who knows the entirety of what love can be and yet chooses something in particular to love anyway. And that something in particular seems, in this unfortunate case, to be Crowley.

Aziraphale doesn’t know how the other angles can avoid this all-consuming and passionate directing of love, but if every interaction he’s ever had with Gabriel and the like are any indication, they have. He doesn’t know why he feels the way he does—so strongly and so specifically, not acting on behalf of the general good but quite often selfishly and for the good of the ones he cares about. But to him, there’s no other way to be a vessel of translation especially when one end of the line’s gone dead. To understand God’s love but not direct it specifically seems more painful to Aziraphale than to experience the fulfillment of that love at perhaps the expense of missing out on doing the greater good.

Aziraphale has to think—or perhaps just hopes—that Rumi would agree. Rumi had a teacher, Shams Tabrizi. This was typical for Sufi poets of Rumi’s time. What was not typical is that there are often moments in Rumi’s poems—the Masnavi and others—where it is unclear whether Rumi is referring to God, Shams, or both. Take, for example, the moment in the Masnavi when Rumi declares;

_Love of the dead is not a lasting love_  
_Because the dead don’t come back from above,_  
_Love of the living in your soul and blood,_  
_Each moment makes you fresher than a bud,_  
_Save for him, eternal and divine,_  
_The Saqi with the soul-expanding wine!_

The _Saqi_ could be God, or Shams, or both, and perhaps it’s the ambiguity that matters. In choosing to write poetry instead of prose, and in choosing to leave his phrasing ambiguous, Rumi has allowed a space in which it is always one or the other and both at the same time. Aziraphale knows Rumi would not go as far as to say this, because it seems that for Rumi God may have answered—but for Aziraphale, when God Themself is not answering, perhaps all that is left is to love Shams. To love Crowley.

He suspects that’s why he said what he did at the park, why he left and left Crowley to watch him walk away. Because he was scared. Because there is no blueprint for this, for when an angel loves a demon perhaps more than anything else. Aziraphale knows that his God is not Jewish like Kafka and not Muslim like Rumi, but perhaps that’s the problem—that he cannot understand his God through any of the systems that Gabriel or the Metatron present him with, but instead see Them most clearly represented in the texts of these people of different faiths. Perhaps to understand God he needs to understand love, and to do that he needs to chase after a certain thing, a specific love, a demon named Crowley, however that might terrify him. Perhaps it is this love of the specifics that will lead to the whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The translation of the Masnavi that I was using is Jawid Mojaddedi's from the Oxford World's Classics series. I hope I uuuh did an okay job of summarizing Kafka for those of you who haven't read it, it's kind of a doozy of a thing to try and do. If you are interested in reading any Kafka, there's actually a website where you can read a ton of his stuff for free: https://www.kafka-online.info/ The Trial is on there (that's where I got my translation of the end of the Before the Law parable.) It also has my favorite short story by him, The Hunger Artist (major tw on that one for disordered eating though!) Anyway I know theological speculations on Kafka and Rumi are not everyone's thing but I couldn't write a Good Omens fanfic without some of it! Back to our regularly scheduled Crowley and Aziraphale actually interacting in the next chapter.


	6. Toothpaste & Orange Juice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mention of unhealthy drinking habits

Aziraphale may have been undergoing a personal crisis and reading books spanning centuries and countries only to have them all lead him to the revelation that he may be in love with a demon. Aziraphale may have been doing all that, but Crowley has no idea. From Crowley’s perspective, Aziraphale walked away from the creek and just did not return. Crowley knows that Aziraphale has not been back to the creek because that is where Crowley has been for the past week or two.

It started with the wading in to mourn his never-had boyhood, but then once he was in the creek he just didn’t really see any reason to get out. Crowley’s normal go-to in times of crisis may be to drink himself under the table of a pub, but all the bars of Nevada City, as far as Crowley can tell, are either far too Aesthetic or far too scummy. Northern California lets you take your pick of hippies or rednecks but offer nothing in-between and Crowley doesn’t particularly want to undergo one of the lowest points of his life in the last few centuries while in the company of either.

Besides, he’ll be the first to admit that even as a demon with an eternal life span and particularly robust liver, drinking yourself blind is not the most productive way to deal with your problems. No, far more mature is decision to stand in a creek and never leave.

It’s not that he’s literally been standing in the exact same spot since Aziraphale left. The woods behind this park were a discrete meeting spot for an angel and a demon, which turned out to mean that they are also, apparently, a _prime_ spot for teenagers who want to go smoke. So Crowley has had to move around a bit to avoid said teenagers. For one thing, a grown man standing in the same spot in a creek for upwards of fourteen days would probably alert even the most stoned of teenagers that something weird is going on.

Also, Crowley wants to mourn the end of a centuries-long friendship and one-sided romance in peace, without having to overhear the conversations of a seventeen-year-old boys clad in an oversized t-shirts bearing the logos of such bands as Sublime and the Grateful Dead. However, evading stoned teenagers, particularly when you have magic at your disposal, is an easy task even for a clinically-depressed old man such as Crowley, and so he’s managed to spend the last few days wandering aimlessly up and down the creek and letting time pass.

Crowley has long since resigned himself to the fact that he might pass the rest of his eternal life in this very creek when he hears someone struggling to take off their shoes, then wading into the creek and making their way towards him. For a minute, Crowley doesn’t have the energy to turn and check who it is. _I really hope this isn’t one of those kids,_ Crowley thinks to himself. _I don’t want to have to go full snake-eyes on them. I really just don’t have the energy._ He half hopes it’s Hastor coming up behind him with a vat of holy water to just get the damn deal over with already.

When he turns around, though, he sees that it’s none of those people. It is, in fact, Aziraphale. Crowley’s mouth actually falls open and he stands there uncharacteristically silent, nothing witty to say. He doesn’t have any idea why Aziraphale’s here, but even if it’s just to spit in his face and walk away again Crowley would still be happy to see him. So he doesn’t say a word, hoping maybe if he keeps his damn mouth shut Aziraphale will stick around for a few minutes at least.

So it’s Aziraphale that breaks the silence, and what he says surprises Crowley. “I want to apologize. Everything you told me last time we talked, I – it was a lot to take in, and I’m afraid I did not conduct myself very well. I – I was afraid, of a lot of things. Afraid of you.”

Crowley can tell Aziraphale means to continue, but Crowley cuts him off before he can. “I’m sorry. Why wouldn’t you have been afraid of me,” he says. “You’re an angel, I’m a random demon. I don’t know why I thought I could fix everything.” Crowley stares into the water as he talks, unable to meet Aziraphale’s almost pleadingly sincere gaze.

“No, Crowley, I wasn’t afraid of you like that, I – We’ve known each other for centuries, you said. Even longer than that. Before time began. And I don’t know quite what we mean to each other—” _That’s the understatement of a lifetime_ Crowley thinks to himself as Aziraphale continues talking. “—but it was clear to me that we care for each other in some way. And—and, I could feel that, somehow, even if I don’t remember you. Realizing the depth of my caring for you, even with my memory loss—it took me off guard.”

Aziraphale meant to come here and make a clear declaration of his feelings, but he finds he can’t quite bring himself to do so. _The depth of my caring?_ he thinks to himself. _What in the Heavens does that mean?_

It doesn’t matter, though, because it seems to have done the trick well enough. Crowley is giving him a crooked sort of smile. “Well, we’re… I mean, that’s good, then,” Crowley says.

_The depth of my caring?_ Crowley thinks to himself. _What does that mean?_ He decides not to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. He tries not to smile too broadly. He doesn’t want to scare Aziraphale away again. Crowley’s just glad he’s back.

“You’re really quite hard to find, you know,” Aziraphale tells him crossly, a little gruffly.

“I am literally standing in the same exact place where you left me,” Crowley says.

“Yes, well, I didn’t expect you to _still_ be here. Besides, small town America is very confusing to me. It’s got me all turned around.”

“There are only about two roads in this town. There’s a main street that’s literally called Main Street. You’ve been living here for months!”

“Yes, well, let’s not dwell on that. This _is_ the exact same spot where I left you, isn’t it? Do you come out here often? You don’t really seem like the wading in streams type,” Aziraphale tells Crowley.

It’s still weird for Crowley to hear him talk that way. _You don’t seem like the type_ , a guess at exactly what kind of person Crowley is. It used to be that Aziraphale was closest to knowing who Crowley really was, maybe even closer sometimes than Crowley himself. Still, Crowley is just glad Aziraphale didn’t jump immediately to the assumption that he’d been standing here the whole time Aziraphale was gone. He’s still recover from the throes of his breakdown, and he has to remind himself that Aziraphale can’t see straight through him into the heart of what he’s feeling. He feels worn down, transparent. But he’s grateful, he supposes, that he gets to maintain his dignity at the cost of this bit of distance between what he’s thinking and what Aziraphale understands. 

Crowley realizes he has been staring morosely at the creek without replying to Aziraphale. But instead of answering him directly, Crowley finds himself blurting out, “Do you ever miss having had the opportunity to have been a boy?”

Aziraphale looks taken aback and it’s a minute before he answers. Finally he says, “There’s a lot of things I miss, Crowley. I had this whole life full of… of old books and delicacies and deep, rich friendships, most of all with you and… There’s a lot I miss,” he repeats, seemingly unable to find words for the rest of what he wants to express.

“I…” Crowley begins, then falters, afraid to say something that will mess things up again. He can feel Aziraphale staring at him still, and he forces himself to finally look over and lock eyes with him. The stare Aziraphale gives him is so full of compassion – its’ almost the old Aziraphale looking out at him from behind those same blue eyes, but an Aziraphale who’s a little more upfront with his feelings. So Crowley decides to try his hand at sharing some of his feelings as well.

“I can’t pretend I’ve gone through what you’ve gone through, I know,” Crowley says. “But I can imagine a bit of what it’s like. The more time I spend on earth, the more I begin to feel a little bit less like a demon and little bit more like one of them. But as soon as I start to feel too close to being human, it only reminds me all the more that I can never be. It starts to feel like there are pieces of me missing. I never got to be young, not like them, not really. I’ve never… I never played jacks. I’ve never flown a kite.”

“I think you’re a bit out of touch with how the youth of today occupy their time,” Aziraphale says kindly. “But, no, I’m sorry, go on.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how to say it. Only that this work of being a demon or an angel, well, it’s lonely, even if you remember everything. Sometimes especially if you do.”

Crowley’s back to staring in the creek again, unable to look at Aziraphale. He feels terrible somehow making this whole situation all about himself, when Aziraphale is the one who’s mind’s been all shot to pieces with Heavenly Grace or whatever. Only it’s been hard, not having his friend. Besides, it’s hard to look directly at Aziraphale when he’s got the pant legs of his nice white suit rolled up just below his knee so he can stand and keep Crowley company in this creek. The image is almost too much to bear.

What Aziraphale does next surprises Crowley. Instead of continuing a conversation that seems to be futile, one that neither of them have the words for, Aziraphale does something he’s never done before. He reaches out and takes Crowley’s hand. Crowley is so taken aback it’s all he can do to keep from leaping away. He feels like he did in the church in the ‘40s, shot through with pins and needles, but this time it’s not an unpleasant feeling. He remembers the first time the angel touched him, an accidental brush of one hand against another as they stood waiting for the world to flood.

Before that first touch, he’d spent more time than he’d like to admit wondering what it would be like. If he’d burst into flames, dissolve on the spot, vaporize into a mist. He’d always known the angel had some sort of power over him, but at first he’d convinced himself it was the power of Heaven against Hell and that the risk was a merely theological one. He was worried, he told himself, that a being of divine light coming into contact with a fallen being such as himself would have disastrous material consequences.

But after that first hand brush it became clear to Crowley that the danger had been a much subtler one, a question of personal entanglement and not divine dematerialization. _Oh no,_ he’d though just as it had started to rain. _If he ever touches me again I’m going to fall in love with him and there will be no going back._

Aziraphale had touched him again, of course, and Crowley had fallen inescapably in love with him. But the touches had always been accidental. A brush of a hand, their shoulders bumping together, one shoe nudging another. There was always, despite their continued meetings, a limit to their proximity. They maintained between them a careful distance, one that could sometimes be measured in tenths of an inch but which still felt insurmountable to Crowley. All these accidental touches were to be brushed off, swept under the rug, never re-visited. And yet they persisted. A meeting of hands as they both reached for a menu, for the door, for the hand rail on a bus. Crowley had looked forward to these small moments, even begun to orchestrate them.

But this. This is different. This is on purpose. Crowley feels, as he has so often today, terrified to break the spell, to ruin the moment. But even as he reveals in it, he feels guilty. Because it truly does feel like some sort of dark fairy tale, like there’s a spell to be broken. He must be a demon if his friend is struck with something very much curse-adjacent and yet Crowley is here breathless because of the small gift the circumstances have brought him.

But he can’t help but savor the moment. After the initial shock, the pins and needles feeling subsides, and holding hands with Aziraphale just feels comfortable. Like it’s something they’ve been doing for thousands of years. They stand there a moment longer before Aziraphale pulls his hand away.

“Well,” Aziraphale says. What he’s thinking is, _Not so lonely after all._ But what he says is, “Not quite sure why I did that.”

“Oh, well,” Crowley replies. It seems the momentary reprieve from conversation has not made starting it up again any easier.

“I—I felt something, you know,” Aziraphale tells Crowley after a pause.

“You—ah, sorry, you—felt something?”

“When we held hands.”

“Oh, I, ah, felt something too,” Crowley says cautiously.

“It was like that sensation you get in our mouth when you drink orange juice after brushing your teeth. Only it was in my mind. Nice job your lot did designing that sensation, by the way,” Aziraphale tells Crowley.

“Sorry, I, uh—what?”

“Well that’s the only way I think to describe it. It was so odd. It was like I was remembering something, but without being quite able to grasp what it was. We’ve never done that before, have we?”

“What, held hands? Well, no. But, wait – what? You remembered something! Or you almost did! We haven’t held hands before, but we’ve been swimming together, you know. During the flood, actually. That was the first time. There were some more fun ones after that. There was one, ah, particular time at a bath house,” Crowley pauses and coughs, “but I don’t know if that particularly counts as swimming, per se. But I’m getting off track here. Was it that? Were you thinking of one of those times?”

“Well I don’t know what I was thinking of, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, sounding vexed. Then he softens. “Still, that’s a good sign, isn’t it? It’s funny, you know. I came here today with my head all full up of theology, and meaning to tell you all these things I read, and what they might mean about us. But instead I found myself wading into a creek with you, and talking about flying kites and bath houses, and. Well. It’s been nice.”

Crowley would almost be indignant upon learning that the past two weeks he’d spent in agony Aziraphale had been _reading books_ , but he’s happy to hear Aziraphale say it’s been nice. He finds he can’t bring himself to mad. He can hardly ever bring himself to be mad when it comes to Aziraphale. Probably a bad sign for him, demon-wise. But good for his nerves. Crowley had sat through one session of psycho-analysis after he helped create the concept, wanting to revel in his demonly doings. But then Freud had tried to diagnose him with neurosis. It affronted him at the time, and it’s something he’s never particularly gotten over.

Crowley’s weak nerves aside, he’s excited and terrified that Aziraphale’s memory might be coming back. This is what he came here to set right, he reminds himself. “So, what do we do know?” Aziraphale says, as if speaking Crowley’s thoughts aloud.

“I guess now we, ah, try and get your memory back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooo my personal life got wild there for a minute, hence this story going MIA for a while. I really am dedicated to finishing it, and already have the ending all worked out. I don't want to promise weekly updates or anything because my life is still in a bit of an upheaval but I am actively working on the next chapter and excited to get back into this! Thanks to any of you who are still around after that long gap between chapters, I'm very excited about my plans for this story and wanted to finish telling it for any of you who are still around!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'll be posting updates at least once a week if not more frequently. I've got at least half of the fic done already, it just needs editing, so it should all be up before too much time has passed!


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